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Tom Williams is a man with a problem. Almost 7,000 of them, in fact, but all “good problems”, he insists. That is roughly the size of the order book – 6,818, to be precise – of pan-European plane-maker Airbus. As the company’s chief operating officer it is his job to make sure the jets get built.

“I’d rather have these problems than not have them,” says Williams, sitting in a nondescript meeting room at Airbus’s Bristol plant following a visit from Chancellor George Osborne. “My old boss Louis Gallois would say, ‘These are a rich man’s problems.’ I’m enthusiastic about them.”

The scale of the challenge facing Williams is immense. He needs to get production of Airbus’s latest A350 jet up to speed,...